The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in English language arts. The lowest is 17% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Ranson Elementary School
Ranson Elementary School sits on North Preston Street in the older grid of Ranson, a small Jefferson County city that has spent the past century shifting from industrial roots toward commercial and residential growth. The town sits on the northwestern fringe of the Washington metropolitan area, and that proximity shapes much of its character. A four-lane expressway carrying State Route 9 cuts through the city, lined with commercial strips, while the original town center retains a grid of older streets with sidewalks and a few civic landmarks, including City Hall and Jefferson Medical Center. Manufacturing once anchored the local economy, but those employers have largely closed. Today the biggest economic engine sits just outside the city limits at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races, with healthcare and printing facilities also employing residents. Public transit runs on weekdays, connecting Ranson to Martinsburg, Kearneysville, and Charles Town. The city has grown rapidly through annexation, expanding to roughly nine square miles and adding commercial, residential, and agricultural land. Casino tax revenue has funded streetscape improvements, park renovations, and municipal building upgrades.
The school serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and belongs to Jefferson County Schools. Its enrollment is modest for a school covering that grade span. The student body reflects a community in transition. White students make up just under half the enrollment, with Hispanic students forming the next largest group. Black students and students of two or more races each represent smaller but meaningful shares, and a small number of Asian students round out the population. The school does not report free-or-reduced-price lunch figures, nor does it provide data on English learners or students with individualized education programs, so a parent looking for information on how the school supports those populations would need to ask the administration directly.
State testing results are available for the grades West Virginia assesss at this level, third through fifth, using the West Virginia General Summative Assessment. Because the school does not serve grades six through eight, those rows appear as missing, which is expected for an elementary building rather than a sign of unreported data.
In math, third-grade proficiency sits near a third of tested students, fourth grade rises to roughly two-fifths, and fifth grade drops sharply to a level where only a small fraction reached proficiency. The fifth-grade math result stands out as a clear soft spot, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly whether the drop reflects a cohort challenge, a curriculum transition, or something specific to that grade's instruction.
English language arts follows a similar pattern but with a stronger middle year. Third grade shows roughly a third of students proficient, fourth grade reaches about half, and fifth grade falls to about a fifth of tested students. The fourth-grade ELA result is the strongest single figure the school posts, and the grade-to-grade swing between fourth and fifth is wide enough to warrant a conversation with school staff about what drives that decline. Science is tested only in fifth grade at this level, and proficiency there is low, with fewer than a fifth of students meeting the bar.
Only one year of assessment data is available, so there is no trend line to show whether these results are improving, stable, or declining over time. A parent evaluating the school should treat the current results as a snapshot rather than a pattern, and ask the school for multiple years of internal data to see where things are heading.
No data was available on discipline, course access, staffing ratios, or attendance, so those dimensions of school life cannot be characterized here. Title I status was also not reported. Program offerings were not provided, so information about afterschool activities, intervention services, gifted programming, or extracurriculars would need to come from the school or district directly. Jefferson County Schools recently reduced its property tax levy rate, which lowers the annual tax burden for homeowners in the district, a factor families weighing the cost of living may appreciate.
Housing in the school's zip code sits well above the West Virginia state benchmark and below the national benchmark, reflecting the influence of the broader Washington-area market. Estimated monthly mortgage costs modestly exceed typical rent, and rent absorbs roughly a quarter of median household income. For families buying into the area, the housing market is more expensive than most of West Virginia but remains comparatively accessible relative to the national picture, which is the trade-off of living on the metro fringe with access to larger employment centers.
The school that emerges from this data is a small, diverse elementary building in a growing small city, with mixed academic results that show strength in the middle grades and real concern at fifth grade. Families drawn to the area's location and relative housing affordability will want to ask pointed questions about how the school addresses its upper-grade proficiency drops and what support structures exist for the populations it does not currently report on.
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